To be enjoying reading this 'Complete Babycare' book from 1979?

[Kayano]

I asked my mum a bit of advice (how old normally when they roll over) and she cracked out this gem of a book

I am reading it like

Some choice quotes:
'pregnancy can be a very enjoyable time for women, a time when one can make the most of long days at home and seek out pursuits such as sewing or dressmaking...'

:O

'most women have slight swelling of the hands and fingers in late pregnancy'

This wouldn't be so bad if not accompanied by a pic of a woman looking all bolted and sadly having to lay down her knitting needles. Really!

'rest periods are also ideal times for embarking on practical preparations, like knitting baby clothes'
Accompanied by an enthusiastic knitter.

'once your baby is born you will spend even more time in the kitchen.'

I never spend time
In the kitchen unless I have run out of chocolate and need to make
Some emergency cake mix. I don't spend time in the kitchen now! If I do the night feed damn straight DH is cooking and sterilising the bottles

Thank god things have progressed!

This book was an edition published in the 1980s but you totally
Wouldn't think so! It's from m&s too!

and war - the first world war killed most of that generation's "children"

Does that not get calculated differently, though? I mean, life expectancy in 1890-1900 was probably perfectly ok, because no-one knew that those children born then were likely to turn 18 and go and get killed.

I grant, loppy mentions war herself so I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, though!

I was chatting to my mum (had me in the mid-80s) and she remembers the thing about Stout being good for breastfeeding. What I found really surprising was a snippet my gran apparently thought was gospel: children don't talk until they're three or four, and this is normal. If they babble before that, ignore it, because it won't be proper sentences and you don't want to encourage them not to learn to talk properly.

Any idea where the heck that one came from?! Gran is no longer with us so I can't ask, but my mum remembers her saying it quite often.

I think the life-expectancy she was referring to was "all things considered"
ie taking out unusual circumstances like pandemics (as opposed to prevalent disease) and war.

my sister had her 1st in 1999, and she used to drink a half of stout once a week for iron.

Mmm, maybe nickel. Still doesn't make sense, though.

Something I find quite thought-provoking is that a friend who nurses told me her hospital was under pressure from some local journo who wanted to write a story about how the percentage of babies born premature who were dying was actually going up - until it was explained that these days we try to save babies born much earlier than we used to, babies who once would not even have been considered to have a chance. It's both very uplifting and very sad - like the way a lot of this thread is both funny and sad, I guess.

i know

(my i know was to the first part)

I got that!

How is the baby, btw? I do hope you're drinking your pint of stout, using lead nipple shields, etc etc.

i don't like stout, so i'm having resort to eating green leafy veg would you believe! [bushock]

ROAR at loppydog's 'I'm sure all this is very amusing'

Disgusting! You'd better be boiling it thoroughly ... I hear about an hour will do nicely for all the horrible diseases vegetables carry in their natural state ...

an hour?
golly, i did it for 2 hours and thought i'd undercooked them!

DoomCats -- no, I don't think it is calculated differently, any more than deaths in road accidents or other unnatural causes are factored out.

My granny used to have a glass of stout a day (vair ladylike) while pregnant and nursing to keep her strength up. It contains iron and B vitamins apparently.

nickel - no doubt you're right. I like to live on the edge, me.

math - how does that work, then? I mean, you can predict some 'unnatural causes', can't you? So you can assign a life expectancy to a baby in the knowledge that all sorts of factors from illness to being hit by a car will affect that number. But could you predict something like WWI that had such a large effect?

Disclaimer: I may be completely misunderstanding here! I just thought 'life expectancy' at birth only refers to the statistical probability based on the evidence up to the birth year - what does it actually do?